Weather during the Civil War

With all the hype about Global Warming, I thought it would be interesting to print something about the weather during the Civil War. It’s eye-opening to see the weather cycles that have been occurring since the beginning of time.

According to the Virginia Vignette, weather was influential in shaping events during the American Civil War (1861–1865). For instance, concerns about weather helped determine overall strategy as well as tactics on the battlefield.

Generals looked to the skies to decide when to begin spring campaigns, cursed at flooded rivers for impeding progress, and pushed their men to endure the extremes of the Southern climate.

Weather also colored the war experience for soldiers and civilians. Becoming a veteran soldier meant being seasoned by the weather as much as being transformed by combat.

Meanwhile, men and women in Virginia and across the nation religiously recorded meteorological events in diaries, letters, and newspapers, knowing how decisive this force of nature, so completely beyond human control, could be on wartime events.

Meteorologically, the Civil War took place at the tail end of what is often termed the “Little Ice Age,” a period of general cooling and unpredictability that most scholars date from roughly 1310 to 1850.

Despite what its name suggests, the Little Ice Age actually encompassed dramatic fluctuations in weather, with one year bringing an intensely cold winter and easterly winds, and the next heavy rains and raging heat. On the whole, conditions began to warm after 1850, but during the war Virginia experienced extreme precipitation and alternate periods of blazing heat and bitter cold.

6 Comments

When I researched weather conditions surrounding the Battle of Brandy Station, I learned that a dense fog covered the Rappahannock on June 9th, which made it easy for Pope’s men to surprise the Va. 6th at Beverly’s and Kelly’s Fords. Weather played a huge role in the war. Great post!

Indeed, the end of the “Little Ice Age” brought such cold temperatures that the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) — usually visible only north of the 45th Parallel — was clearly visible as far south as Fredericksburg, VA in December, 1862.

Soldiers of both sides (including Union commander Joshua Chamberlain, lying on the battlefield after the first day of fighting at the base of Marye’s Heights) reported an extraordinary display in the cold-clear skies over the embattled town.

However, to point this phenomenon up as something that gives the lie to the global warming argument is simply inaccurate. According to a 2001 report by UNEP, one of the groups tasked with studying climate change:

“Evidence from mountain glaciers does suggest increased glaciation in a number of widely spread regions outside Europe prior to the 20th century, including Alaska, New Zealand and Patagonia. However, the timing of maximum glacial advances in these regions differs considerably, suggesting that they may represent largely independent regional climate changes, not a globally-synchronous increased glaciation. Thus current evidence does not support globally synchronous periods of anomalous cold or warmth over this time frame, and the conventional terms of ‘Little Ice Age’ and ‘Medieval Warm Period’ appear to have limited utility in describing trends in hemispheric or global mean temperature changes in past centuries… [Viewed] hemispherically, the ‘Little Ice Age’ can only be considered as a modest cooling of the Northern Hemisphere during this period of less than 1°C relative to late 20th century levels.”

One need only look at actual, measured departures from normal temperatures over the centuries to see how off-the-charts drastically our planet has been consistently warming since the onset of the Industrial Revolution.

The fact is that “global warming” is no longer a theory: It is proven fact. Even those scientists who so long argued against even a warming trend have ceased that argument in the face of overwhelming empirical data. The only real debate now is about what’s causing the warming.

Yes, that’s true, Mary. Thanks. I’ve stood on mountains in Colorado that were once rain forests, and wonder why there is any question that the earth goes through natural cycles. This isn’t exactly the first time.

Interesting post. In my MG manuscript I’ve written, my main character finds a civil war letter her ancestor wrote and in it he says to his wife “This month it has been raining almost all the time. I yearn for an old quilt to help keep me dry, as I am chilled to my bones at night. . . “. I’ve read the letters Rutherford B Hayes wrote during the Civil War and he mentions the weather a lot.